Actually, the Democratic Party first became a manifestly corrupt and even evil party in the late 80's. The Bork nomination was the first sign that Leftist Radicals had taken firm majority control of the Democratic Party and proved they would stoop to any lie or falsehood to win. It got worse with Tower and Thomas and many other nominees. The Clinton years showed them literally capable of even betraying their own principles and turning a blind eye to executive abuses that make Nixon look like a jaywalker. The old guard liberals and moderates of the Democratic Party are all but gone now and the Democratic Party is fully corrupted. Look how bad it is for them. Their "elder statesmen" are Gephardt, Daschle, Gore, and Hillary (Not a lick of difference among them on any issue at all.) Heck- Up until a few months ago the Torch was considered presidential timber for the Democrats!
The Democratic party is in deep trouble. It has zero popular support and it's "natural constieuncies" are largely gone or showing signs of breaking away. While Republicans get millions in donations from hundreds of thousands of contributuers in the 100 to 500 dollar range the Democrats have no similiar middle class support and rely on a small band of extremely wealthy individuals and corporations for their support. They still enjoy mainstream media bias and support but that too is in jeapordy. Even demographics show blacks questioning support for Democrats or becoming less vulnerable to racialist scare mongering.
Academia, elements of popular culture, mainstream media support is how they survive now. But that is not enough for the long run. They are trapped by their own failures and ideology which allows them to admit no error. They are trapped by Leftist cliches and bromides. Their policies have utterly failed. Incapable of embracing any sort of dissident ideas that may breath life into the party- they lash out with phoney charges of "racism"- seek to demonize their enemies, make crude pleas to class that no longer even exist. The democrats are ossified intellectually- and it has corrupted them completely.
I agree. It's also interesting how the "New Democratic" strategy of moving to the middle has fractured the party and left it as basically a body without a head. Really these days the Democrats are more of a coalition than a party, and the coalition is very shakey. Clinton and his "New Democratics" have completely sold out Organized Labor, it seems to me. The "life style" liberals share none of the values with the traditional democrats. The minority vote is becoming ever less monolithic. Really I think a lot of blame goes back to the "New Democrat" group, who pretty much seem to have managed to take over the party without any real public debate and before most of the rank and file even knew they existed. It perhaps was a calculated and self-serving move by a small group of people who advanced their own careers at the party's expense.